THE WING ON A FLEA

Using intensified colors against solid black backgrounds, Emberley has really pumped up the visuals in this reissue of his 1961 debut. Above a catchy rhyme urging readers to look for the triangles, rectangles, and circles that everywhere abound, blizzards of geometric shapes float, combine, and recombine into arrays of stylized figures, both fanciful and everyday. Emberley closes by acknowledging that real fleas don’t have wings, but his do, then flogs his three popular series of drawing titles. The idea’s not as innovative as it once was, but young children will still pore over this bright, busy consciousness-raiser, then look up to see their world with new eyes. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-6)